LUCCA , 17km northeast of Pisa, is the most graceful of Tuscany's provincial capitals, set inside a ring of Renaissance walls fronted by gardens and huge bastions. It's quiet without being dull and absorbs its few tourists with ease.

The city lies at the heart of one of Italy's richest agricultural regions, and it has prospered since Roman times. Its heyday was the eleventh to fourteenth centuries, when the silk trade brought wealth and, for a time, political power. Lucca first lost its independence to Pisa in 1314, then, under Castruccio Castracani, forged an empire in the west of Tuscany. Pisa and Pistoia both fell, and, but for Castracani's untimely death in 1325, Lucca might well have taken Florence. In subsequent centuries it remained largely independent until falling into the hands of Napoleon and the Bourbons. The composer Giacomo Puccini was born here in 1858. Today Lucca is reckoned among the wealthiest and most conservative cities in Tuscany, its prosperity gained largely through silk and high-quality olive oil .